


Fate's Tempest

by mihaelandnate (Lumorai)



Category: Shin Sangokumusou | Dynasty Warriors
Genre: Extended Metaphor, Major Illness, Post-Canon, blood mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 14:29:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2625173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumorai/pseuds/mihaelandnate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The shamans may have predicted a storm, but Ma Dai had never anticipated the catastrophe that was waiting on its arrival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fate's Tempest

**Author's Note:**

> "Honey, you got a big storm coming" doesn't even begin to cover this.

It took Ma Dai by surprise, as everything involving Ma Chao ever had. He had never been prepared for what had transpired; though, looking back on it all, no one could have stopped the fate from exacting its toll.

 

“It is merely the wind,” Ma Chao said. He stifled a cough while listening to the elders' news. The shamans of the small Qiang tribe had forewarned that a storm was coming, and there was naught they could do about it. Still, they had assuaged, the land would recover, as the cycle decreed.

 

As the days dragged on, the sky darkened and the atmosphere became dense with moisture. Ma Chao grew more secretive, his grin more forced as he tried to hide his labored breath from his cousin. “The air's thick,” he explained, and covered his mouth with his wrist as though he had always wiped his lips clean after he finished talking.

 

Ma Dai watched the first drops break free from the skies, a light sprinkle signaling the beginning of the downpour to follow. Ma Chao had stayed home today and Ma Dai pardoned himself as well. It had been the first time in these few weeks that Ma Chao had acknowledged he felt unwell. “I feel a little cold,” he said almost apologetically, and endeavored to stand still as another bout of hacking coughs overtook his shivering frame. “It's not an issue,” he assured Ma Dai, wiping his mouth as had become his habit. “I just need a short nap.”

 

Oh, how Ma Dai had wished he had seen it sooner. What had been forecast as a heavy rain could only be described as a typhoon as the heavens threatened to remake the world anew. Ma Dai propped Ma Chao's quivering shoulders against him gently. Wave after wave of spasms passed as he spat phlegm and coppery blood into the cloth held up for him. _It's not ending_ , Ma Dai realized, and for the first time Ma Chao admitted, “I might be sick.”

 

The ground flooded as the water washed away defining features of the landscape, rewriting the history of the land itself. Ma Chao was laying in bed with a wet rag on his forehead, knuckles white as he clung to Ma Dai's hand. He had slept restlessly for hours now, but it held no consequence as he woke up gasping for air, chest heaving as though thousands of stones weighed down his lungs. His words came in ragged pants, tone muted as he struggled to confess what Ma Dai had feared: “I... am dying.”

 

The end of the storm was the most cruel of all. Clouds drizzled gently on the pockmarked terrain, a subtle yet ever-present reminder of the havoc wreaked on the soil. And yet while most of the men in the village were tentatively leaving the safety of their homes to survey the damage, Ma Dai had another tempest to assuage, another mess to salvage. Inside of the tiny bedroom played a silent dirge, mourning the end of a bitter struggle.

 

Ma Chao laid peacefully on his back, pained gaze still and unblinking as though he could observe the last of the sky's lament through the roof. Ma Dai blinked back tears from his eyes as he tried so incredibly desperately to not let his own storm consume him. And yet, like the torrent that had plagued them so, Ma Dai's own sobs came in silent quakes, bursting forth from the floodgates he had erected so carefully.

 

Hours, almost a day, came and went until Ma Dai, too, had calmed. Slowly, his shaking hands wiped away bloodied mucus from a slack jaw, removed the dry tears from unseeing orbs. His movements were determined as he redressed his lord in the white garb reserved for the dead. When Ma Dai was at last done restoring the body, Ma Chao looked so peaceful; without the shadow of calamity to cover them, Ma Chao looked as though he were just resting.

 

And yet, though the hurricane beating upon Ma Chao had at last stopped, there would be no revival like the rest of the Earth. With unsteady hands and a sunken heart, he lifted Ma Chao's broken figure carefully to bring outside.

  
Ma Dai gave him one last look before laying him to rest, a joining of a consumed body brought to peace at last in the drowned terrain.

**Author's Note:**

> Historically, in 221 AD, Ma Chao was tasked with using his reputation among the several ethnic groups in northern China (including the Qiang, who he was a descendant of) to introduce Shu Han's government and gain their trust. It is unknown if his mission was a success or failure; in 222 he died of an unstated cause, most likely an unnamed illness.
> 
> Though the game does not ever focus on this aspect of Ma Chao's journey, I still wanted to explore the few years that Ma Chao and his loyal cousin, Ma Dai, were absent from the story line. However, Ma Chao dies in 228 in game, so this could take place in either time frame. 
> 
> Ma Dai's whereabouts are never specified in any point in history, so for the sake of game consistency let's say that he accompanied his lord.


End file.
